Van Heflin stars as the head of a city crime lab who tries to solve the murder of the town mayor by scientifically analyzing evidence.

A naive young girl, looking to escape from a bad family situation, falls in love with a man who turns out to be a cad, and leads her down the road to ruin.

A woman doesn't realize that the man she has just married is a gangster. When she is implicated in a murder he committed, she turns to an ex-boyfriend, who is now a park ranger, for help. He hides her out in a cabin up in the mountains, and her husband goes on the hunt for both of them.

In old New Orleans, a beautiful adventuress juggles the attentions of a rich banker and a dashing sea captain.

High school students led by the Girl and Boy turn from Christianity toward secret atheistic meetings. When a girl is accidentally killed by a stairway collapse, the Girl and Boy go to reform school where they are treated brutally.

A condemned murderer named Clement is "liberated" when the Nazis bomb the French jail that holds him. During his escape, Clement comes across the body of a French soldier; he steals the dead man's uniform and identification papers, then hides from the law by joining the Resistance movement. Clement's new identity and purpose in life reforms him, and in due time he has sacrificed himself in service of his country.

Jimmy Durante is jungle movie star Schnarzan the Conqueror, but the public is tiring of his fake lions. When Baron Munchausen comes to town with real man-eating lions, Durante throws him a big Hollywood star-studded party so that he might use the lions in his next movie. But, his film rival sneaks into the party to buy the lions before Durante.